Advertising has become so pervasive, these pundits can't even see it. It is the air we breathe and the murder weapon hidden in plain sight.

I was reminded of this recently when re-reading a book every advertising person should read -- Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton. It will make you feel a little uncomfortable about your job, but a lot better about your life.

There is a chart in the book that should be very instructive to the "advertising is dead" bunch. I have taken the liberty of reproducing it here.So if advertising is dead, I'd like to know what is driving all this consumer desire? User generated content? Permission marketing? The "conversation?" What?

Pathetic Whining Pays Off:Since our hysterical rant a few weeks ago, several bloggers have had the decency to include your favorite blog and mine on their blog rolls. This week, I would like to acknowledge three erudite bloggers who have "rolled" us: Sell Sell, FreedomPictures, and the wonderful ad broad. Please patronize our advertisers.

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Ad Contrarian Says:

"Shakespeare was a storyteller. You're a copywriter.""Good ads appeal to us as consumers. Great ads appeal to us as humans."

"Social Media: Tens of millions of disagreeable people looking to make trouble."

"As an ad medium, the web is a much better yellow pages and a much worse television."

"Sometimes success in the advertising business requires sitting quietly and letting clients proceed with their hysterical delusions."

"Marketers prefer precise answers that are wrong to imprecise answers that are right."

"Brand studies last for months, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and generally have less impact on business than cleaning the drapes."

"The idea that the same consumer who was frantically clicking her TV remote to escape from advertising was going to merrily click her mouse to interact with it is going to go down as one of the great advertising delusions of all time."

"Nobody really knows what "creativity" is. Every year thousands of people take a pilgrimage to find out. This involves flying to Cannes, snorting cocaine, and having sex with smokers."

"Marketers habitually overestimate the attraction of new things and underestimate the power of traditional consumer behavior."

"We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product."

"In American business, there is nothing stupider than the previous generation of management."

"If the message is right, who cares what screen people see it on? If the message is wrong, what difference does it make?"

"The only form of product information on the planet less trustworthy than advertising is the shrill ravings of web maniacs."

"There's no bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he's missing a trend."

"All ad campaigns are branding campaigns. Whether you intend it to be a branding campaign is irrelevant. It will create an impression of your brand regardless of your intent."

"Nobody ever got famous predicting that things would stay pretty much the same."